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Chapter 44: The Very Perfume of Love

Osho,Every time you talk about transforming passion into compassion, something in my heart gets triggered; but still, I do not understand what it means.Could you explain it to me again?

The energy called passion is always addressed towards someone. It is possessive, and because it is possessive it is ugly. To transform passion into compassion means that your energy for love is not addressed to anybody in particular; it is simply your fragrance, it is simply your presence, it is simply the way you are. It is not directed, not one-dimensional. It is radiation, so whoever comes close will feel your love - and it is non-possessive.

The possessive love is a contradiction in terms because possessiveness means you are reducing the other person into a thing. Only things can be possessed, not persons. Only things can be owned, not persons.

The person’s essential quality that differentiates him from things is his freedom; and possession, ownership, destroys freedom.

So on the one hand you think you are loving a person; on the other hand, you are destroying his very essence.

Compassion is releasing love from the clutches of possessiveness. Then love is just a soft glow, undirected, unaddressed. You simply shower it because you are so full of it, but it is not a question of just thinking.

Passion has to go through the whole process of meditation to become compassion. Meditation will take away all possessiveness, ownership, jealousy, and will leave only the pure essence, the very perfume of love.

Only a man deeply rooted in meditation can have compassion.

So when I say change your passion into compassion, I am saying let your energy be purified through meditation from all that is garbage in it. Let it become simply a fragrance available to all. Then it does not destroy anybody’s freedom but enhances it, and the moment your love enhances somebody’s freedom love becomes spiritual.

Osho,I have been feeling more and more ashamed of being an American after seeing the disgraceful way you were treated there.And it seems the symbiotic economic relationships between the USA and other governments make it very difficult even for other nations to act independently towards you.It has become a conflict for me to even participate in the economy of the U.S. and enjoy its benefits, knowing that the taxes I pay help to keep it in the business of violating human rights all over the world.Can you comment on whether it is even possible to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” and still maintain some integrity and self respect? I feel like such a hypocrite going about my business as usual, but if I open my mouth there is usually trouble.